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Monday, May 22, 2017

Iraqi Sniper

The latest movie about America’s
tragic, never-ending war in the Middle East is ‘The Wall,’ a low-budget affair
directed by Doug Liman (‘The Bourne Identity,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘Edge of
Tomorrow’).With a mere budget of
$3 million and a cast of two, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and WWE superstar John Cena,
‘The Wall’ is at first glance intriguing but ultimately an unsatisfying war movie that
takes a lo-fi minimalist approach.

Johnson and Cena play sergeants
Allen Isaac and Shane Matthews, a US Army sniper team sent to investigate a
pipeline construction site that’s “gone dark” in the middle-of-nowhere desert
wasteland of post-war Iraq.After
patiently observing the now quiet kill zone where the private contractors were
killed for nearly 24 hours, the pair broke cover in order to recover equipment
only to find themselves pinned down by an unseen enemy, a cunning and ruthless
Iraqi sniper who takes particular pleasure in playing mind games with his
hapless victims (namely Isaac).The only thing separating Isaac and his sadistic never-seen adversary is a length
of crumbling brick wall, which provides the setting for virtually the film’s
entire length.

Even though I’m as much a fan of do-or-die
cat-and-mouse sniper duels as anyone (I thought ‘Enemy at the Gates’ was
good and enjoyed ‘American Sniper’ despite its blatant rah-rah jingoism), ‘The Wall’ just didn’t hold my
attention or interest long enough.In the
wake of his bravura performance in ‘Nocturnal Animals,’ Johnson proved once
again that he can act (although Cena was pretty much a non-factor after he ran
out and got shot), but the movie’s limited by an overly thin and sparse script
that would have trouble holding our attention for 60 minutes, much less its
81-minute running time.Grade: C-